Backcountry
by avocadomoon
Summary: Running into him at exactly the right moment, finding a man who would work just as hard for her as she did for him - it was a gift. The only one God ever gave her. [for astolat, chocobox 2019]


Marie wakes up to the sound of tires on her gravel driveway. She sits straight up in bed, listening for a second, cautious but not scared. An engine running rough, then turning off. A car door, opening. A man's voice, cursing. She grins.

She'd chosen this house partly because of its layout; secluded by a grove of thick trees, the only way in is the road, which ends practically right at her deliberately thin bedroom window. Marie can lay back in bed and hear anyone who might approach by car. If they're approaching on foot, she's got bigger problems, but then again - she's got other ways of watching for that.

It's been years since she had to worry, though. The only one who ever comes is Logan.

"Knock knock," he calls, muffled through the barrier of the glass. Marie leans over on the mattress, pulling one of the curtains aside far enough to see him. "You awake?"

Marie's grin widens, and she lets the curtain fall. Her robe is draped over her headboard, and she doesn't bother with slippers. Almost tripping over her own feet in her excitement, Marie scampers through to the front door, pulling it open. Logan is there, smirking, his arms already extended. She takes him up the invitation enthusiastically.

"Oof." Logan staggers back a step - just to tease her, she knows it - and his arms fumble on her waist before squeezing tight. "Take it easy, darlin', I've been driving all night."

"What are you, sore?" she says, tightening her grip on his neck. He still smells the same, which always secretly blows her mind. He travels all around the country in the times that he's away, in a dozen different cars he shares with who knows how many strangers, and he still always smells exactly the same. How that's possible, she doesn't even know.

"Well, I ain't getting any younger," he says, absurdly. Marie rolls her eyes as she pulls away. "Good to see you. I like the hair." He flips the ends of it, with a lopsided smile. "Don't think you've ever had it this short before."

"I haven't," Marie says, conscious of how many days it's been since she's washed it. She smooths it down quickly, grimacing when her fingers pull at the snarls at the back of her head. "I got tired of taking care of it. I was gonna cut it all off - give myself one of those pixie cuts, you know, like Audrey Hepburn? Talked myself out of it at the last second, though."

"Looks good," Logan says. Marie holds back a grimace. She never cares about how she looks except for when Logan visits. All of those things she didn't see before suddenly seem glaringly obvious - her uneven haircut, the period acne on her chin, her grubby, ripped-up fingernails. Logically she knows Logan doesn't give a shit, but Marie has found that she does, whenever he's around. "Brought you some supplies."

"Aw, Logan, you didn't have to do that," Marie says, following him out to the black pickup, stepping carefully on the gravel in her bare feet. Logan ignores her, pulling the bed cover back to reveal a couple dozen boxes. "I've got plenty to get me through winter, and I can always hike down to Leadville, if I really need something bad enough."

"Never hurts to have extra, and I didn't bring anything that wouldn't keep," Logan says with a grunt, already starting to unload. Marie huffs at him, and he turns a skeptic eye on her. Or specifically - on her bare feet. "Better go get some shoes on, if you're gonna help."

"You bring me a truck full of shit I don't need and you want me to help carry it?" Marie scoffs. "Forget that."

Logan raises one eyebrow at her. "Then go on inside anyway - it's cold as balls out here."

Marie narrows her eyes. "I'm gonna go make us some coffee," she says, just so he won't think she's following directions. This tactic never works, but at least she tries. Sometimes you just gotta make it a little hard on him.

* * *

Marie changes into day clothes while the coffee brews and Logan works, stacking box after box in the long hallway by the front door. She looks at herself in the bathroom mirror and instantly regrets it - her face is still swollen from sleep, hair greasy, pimples all over her face. Marie gargles some mouthwash, splashes some water on her face, and resolves not to think about it.

Logan is in the kitchen when she emerges, pulling his gloves off at the table. Marie smiles at him, pressing one palm against his fuzzy cheek as she brushes past. Logan jerks a little, blinking rapidly, then angles his face downward, one corner of his mouth turned upward. Marie's smile turns into a giddy smile when she turns her face away, pulling coffee mugs down from the cupboard. It still hasn't gotten old - even years later. Being able to do that to somebody at all, and even more - being able to do it to Logan.

"Most of it's food," Logan says gruffly, clearly trying to move past the tenderness. Marie turns around with two full cups of coffee, and he's looking back at her, eyes sharp. "But some medicine, too. I got a deal on a bunch of it. Some of your medicine too."

By the emphasis, he means the Worthington vaccine, which Marie buys in bulk on the black market. But that doesn't expire, and she does agree with him there in that she can never have enough extra. "Thank you," she says sincerely, handing him one of the mugs. "From your friends in New York?"

"Rich friends," Logan says dryly. "Yeah - they've got plenty. They keep it on hand for the kids who need it, and Xavier can certainly afford it. They'd probably give it to you for free, if you just asked. Wouldn't have to waste your money anymore."

"Maybe," Marie says. But everyone knows the X-Men - good and bad, mutant and human - and she's wary of owing debts to infamous people she's never met. "You still going out on their little missions, or whatever? Fighting the good fight?"

Logan rolls his eyes. "Funny."

Marie laughs at him. "Kidding. I think it's a good thing. I'm proud of you."

"Yeah well," Logan says, clearly uncomfortable. "There's pros and cons. Been trying to stay out of sight since Philadelphia."

"I saw that on the news." Marie had watched from this very table, a livestream from her laptop. "They didn't get a full shot of your face, on any of the video, but - that other lady, the one who can control the weather - "

"Ororo," Logan supplies.

"Right, Ororo Munroe. She got outed." Marie shivers.

"You worried about me?" Logan asks, grinning a little.

Marie blithely ignores the question. "I like Xavier. I watch his speeches on CSPAN sometimes."

"Good old Professor X," Logan says wryly. "Bit of a blowhard."

"You say that about everybody!"

"Not you," Logan says, draining the last of his coffee. "You followin' the stuff in the House?"

"Yeah," Marie says, a bit more soberly. The recent midterms were a mixed bag, as far as mutant rights go, and there are a variety of bills on the House floor that are variations of the Mutant Registration Act. None as blatant, or as forceful as the original - but the same sentiment, dressed up in diplomatic language. "Makes me think some days - we shoulda stayed in Canada."

"Been just as bad up there."

"I'm joking," Marie says, nudging his arm. "You know - trying to lighten the mood?"

"Does it need lightenin'?" Logan asks. "You want some more?" he asks, reaching out for her mug. Marie nods, and he rises to his feet, turning back to the coffeemaker.

"How long are you planning on staying?" Marie asks, directing it to his back. She can't ever ask him this question while looking him in the eye. "If you're lying low…"

"Was planning on sticking around for a bit, yeah," Logan says gruffly, keeping his back turned as he carefully, conspicuously, and slowly refills their mugs. "That is, if you don't mind putting up with me."

Marie tries very hard to sound casual. "Of course not," she says, her voice high and reedy. She clears her throat. "I mean - you know you're always welcome."

Logan doesn't meet her eyes, when he turns back around. "Alright then," he says, the chair creaking beneath his weight as he sits back down.

Marie cradles her coffee in both palms, warming her skin against the ceramic. "I mean, it's no Whitehorse or anything," she says, "but the roads still get pretty bad up here, when the snow hits. If you stay too long, it'll be hard to get out again."

"Never seen winter in the mountains," Logan says thoughtfully. "At least - not this high up."

"It's beautiful," Marie says honestly. She loves winter - she always has. But there's something about the snow in the Rockies - feather soft, heavy with moisture, tumbling gently from the sky in beautiful little clumps. Marie has lost entire mornings to it - just standing on her deck, reaching out with her fingers, watching it fall. "But I get snowed in a lot. And the road up here - well, you drove it. Imagine that in the dead of winter - and the stream will overflow from the snow a lot and then freeze over. Ain't no way you can get that big truck down past that."

"You tryin' to talk me out of it?" Logan asks, again with the eyebrow.

"No," Marie says, her cheeks heating. "I'm just - you know, warning you. This is real mountain living, Logan."

"Well, I can always hike down to Leadville," Logan says, repeating her earlier words with a dry twist. "You know - if I get really sick and tired of you."

Marie bites her lip against a smile. "Or the other way around, more likely."

Logan concedes the point with a nod. There's a moment of loaded silence, as he takes a deep drink of his coffee. Marie watches his throat flex as he swallows, and her own fingers twitch in response, imitating the bob of his Adam's apple. "Things are heating up. I'm pretty visible. Some shit happened that was...well, it'd be safer for everybody if I kept out of sight, while they do whatever the fuck they're gonna do, let's just say that."

By 'they,' he could mean anybody - Magneto, Xavier, Congress. The usual players. Marie's survived this long, and this well, by keeping out of sight. She's not going to complain, now that Logan seems willing to follow her lead. "Well, okay. Hope you packed some condoms in one of those boxes of yours then, 'cuz there ain't a lot else to do up here when it gets cold."

Logan chokes on his coffee, spewing it all over the table. Marie leans back in her chair, satisfied with herself.

* * *

Every night before she goes to bed, Marie injects herself with the vaccine. Just two cc per night is plenty, and with the supply she has on hand, she'll make it about another year and a half before she has to get some more. She hasn't looked at what Logan brought yet, but she'd guess that'll add another six or seven months at least. He wouldn't bother getting it, if it weren't a big enough amount to make it worth the trouble.

She knows he doesn't know why she bothers, when she's alone most of the time anyway. But that's not the point. The point was never about the touching itself. The point was the ability to do it. The choice, and the freedom to make it.

She used to be angry that he didn't understand, but then again, he didn't get a window into her head whenever they accidentally touched, before the cure. Just because she understands how his brain works doesn't mean that it goes both ways, and relationships are a lot easier when you don't expect the other person to read your mind. Just generally speaking.

It's not like he disapproved of her decision or anything; or if he did he never said it. Marie was one of the first in line when the vaccine was approved for the commercial market in Canada. She'd been living in Vancouver at the time, finishing her masters, and she hadn't told him she was going to do it, but he showed up at her dorm the next morning anyway. They went out for breakfast, and sitting there at a grungy table in a Tim Hortons, he reached out and took her bare hand. Just squeezed it once, let it go, and that was it.

Just because something's been done to you doesn't mean you know how to help other people with it. Marie doesn't expect him to try, and she knows he doesn't want that from her either. Pain is not the kind of ground you want to build on. Not if you want something to last, anyway.

* * *

The first few weeks, Logan occupies himself with all the chores that Marie has been putting off until she can teach herself how to do them: her sputtering water heater, the leak in the bathroom sink, the torn weather stripping on the back door. He spends an entire day re-caulking every little crack he can find in the walls and foundation, and another one cleaning out her chimney, which she does know how to do but she's certainly not gonna stop him from taking over that particular job.

Then he spends several days driving between her house and Leadville, bringing back load after load of supplies which Marie isn't shy about telling him they don't need. He, of course, ignores her.

"I have enough painting supplies, for God's sake," Marie says. "And if you bring one more box of Campbell's soup inside this house, Logan, I'm gonna scream."

"Who said they're for you?" Logan asks, straightfaced. He grins as soon as he gets a glare out of her.

"It's just winter," Marie says, exasperated, "not the apocalypse."

Logan just shoots her a dry look, not responding, and Marie feels the urge to knock on the nearest piece of wood.

Their evenings are quiet, spent in their various corners of the house: Marie in her office, Logan in the living room, working his way through her bookshelf. He's always been a quick reader though, and soon his trips to Leadville come with books, in addition to whatever other random shit he feels the need to waste his money on.

"You can't be finding all of these at that little bookshop on Main Street," Marie says, sorting through his haul with interest. Logan's tastes are diverse - it seems like he'll try anything once - and in addition to his usual rotation of thrillers and fantasy novels, he's also got a bunch of non-fiction - mythology, biographies, essays, and of course the various histories of Colorado that you'll find in any bookstore out here. There's even some romance novels, and a set of the Elena Ferrante books, which Marie isn't all that surprised about, if she thinks about it a little. Logan will probably like those a lot.

"There's a bookstore in Breckenridge, and another in Frisco," Logan explains. "Bigger stores there, too. Where'd you think I was getting all that paint - that shitty little general store?"

"Well," Marie says, unwilling to admit that she doesn't actually go to Leadville that often. She gets most of her stuff delivered, to another house she owns a little further down the mountain, which is in a much more accessible spot for mailmen. That one, she rents out to tourists in the summers, but during the winter it's mostly just a gigantic post office box. She's only been here for a couple years, anyway, and she'd like to make this house last, and keeping out of sight is the best way to stretch it out, in her experience. "No, I guess not."

"You get down there much?" Logan asks, deceptively casual. "More young people than I expected, for such a small town."

"Yes, and I have seven boyfriends," Marie says. "One on each street. Two at a time on Fridays."

Logan shoves her with his knee, sending her tumbling over into a stack of paperbacks. Marie lets herself fall, surprised into laughter.

This game Marie plays, where she shocks him with vulgarity or innuendo, has been working for a long, long time and as of yet, she hasn't gotten tired of it. He's a lot more prudish than anyone would expect, though he covers it up well. He gets embarrassed by direct flirting, and flustered by Marie's sharper jokes, and usually responds by pretending to be mad. If she didn't know him that well, she'd think he was being overprotective, like how her father used to angrily joke about killing her boyfriends at the dinner table. But it's not the same kind of anger at all. Logan's is much gentler - a flimsy pretense, really.

The best painting she's ever done was inspired by that contrast, a parallel in her life that Marie has spent a lot of time thinking about. She sold it for seven hundred dollars through a fancy clothes boutique in Richmond, and has regretted it ever since. She has pictures of it, of course - she keeps pictures of all her work, just in case - but it's not the same. She wishes there was a way she could buy it back, or at least figure out who bought it, but at the time she hadn't thought to ask, and she's long since lost touch with the shop owner who sold it for her.

Painting doesn't pay all her bills, but it pays some, and sometimes she likes to pretend that she's got the kind of talent that could really take her places, if she were to ever decide that she wanted to go somewhere. But paintings like that one - dug-up pieces of her heart - only come along every so often. When she was younger, she always wanted to get rid of them as soon as possible, as if banishing them from her sight would make the feelings underneath easier to bear. Now, an official thirty-something, wiser and wearier and more at home with her sadness, Marie knows that anything that real deserves to be kept, regardless of how much it hurts to look at.

"You don't honestly think I've been dating people," Marie says, stretching out on the floor, among the haphazard piles of books. She snags a somewhat soft-looking Stephen King novel and props it beneath her head. "I been telling you in my letters - I keep to myself around here. It might not be the Deep South, but it's not exactly a bright blue state, either. Nobody's organizing mutant rights marches."

"But you said you were getting out more, in your last one," Logan says gruffly. The scrunch in his brow tells Marie that he's disturbed by the conversation. "You can't just...lock yourself up like a hermit, Marie."

"As opposed to what? Lying about myself, just so I can make friends? No thanks." Irritated, Marie rolls over, pushing herself to her feet. "I've done that - remember? And it didn't get me anything but heartbreak."

Logan is silent, frowning down at the crumpled paperbacks. He picks one up - a battered copy of The Bluest Eye - and pushes it against his knee, trying to straighten out its bent pages.

"You didn't come out here because of that, did you?" Marie asks, the thought striking her suddenly, a hard stone in her gut. "Because if this is pity,then you can - "

"Shut up," Logan snaps, rolling his eyes. "You know it's not."

"Good," Marie says firmly. "Because nothing's changed, Logan. I don't want shit from you unless it's real. You understand what I mean?"

"Jesus, Marie," Logan mutters, tossing the book away. "I was just saying, it must be fucking lonely. That's all. Excuse the hell out of me for worrying about you."

Marie blinks at him, then clears her throat, looking away from his offended face. Regretting her anger suddenly, she says softly, "I'm not lonely."

"Well," Logan says gruffly, "good." He rises to his feet. "That's the end of it, then."

Marie scrapes the bottom of her brain for something to say, and still comes up empty. She still feels halfway indignant, chafing as she always does when he frets over weaknesses she's embarrassed about - her safety, her social life, her powers - but the regret is bigger. For snapping at him, and for voicing something neither of them are really ready to talk about.

"Gonna go start dinner," he says, after a painful minute of silence. Still gruff, he mutters something else, beneath his breath, before pushing himself to his feet as well. He scowls at the wall above her head when he speaks again. "Everything I've given you has been real, Marie. That's all I'm gonna say. Don't have to talk about it anymore."

Marie opens her mouth to reply - with what, she's got no idea - and snaps it shut, watching his tense shoulders as he strides out of the room. And Marie is left alone, with the books, and the realization that she has just unintentionally and effortlessly hurt his feelings, which is a rare accomplishment even now, years into this.

Marie picks up The Bluest Eye and pushes it against her thigh, trying to bend the pages back into place like Logan was doing. The second half of the book is hopelessly creased, the victim of an overpacked box or a shelf stuffed too full. Marie presses it flat on the coffee table and piles a couple heavy hardcovers on top in the hope that a little peer pressure will push it back into shape.

"Now sit there and think about what you've done," Marie mutters, placing an unlit candle on top for good measure. "We're all rootin' for ya, kid."

Unsurprisingly, the book does not reply.

* * *

Marie turned 18 in a group home, which always sounded bad when she said it - "group home," like a Lifetime movie or something - but the director was a friend of Logan's, mutant-friendly, and forged her immigration paperwork and treated her like a grown up, even though she wasn't. It was really nice there, with bunk beds and therapists on call and counselors who actually liked what they did. Marie had been there for about a year, and she went to school and got good grades and everything, and she even had friends. Logan checked in on her once in awhile, but his visits had been becoming more and more rare, and she hadn't even noticed at the time, so preoccupied with the possibilities of this new life in front of her. She'd thought, back then, that that would be the end of it. He was just another mutant who helped her out, did right by her, got her somewhere safe, and checking in after the fact had been above and beyond, far as she was concerned. But she hadn't even known him that well.

But then her father died. She found the obituary online, in Meridian's local paper, which she still read every week (obsessive? Sad? Pathetic? All of the above?). So she kept her head down for the last few months of school, got her diploma, and then told her friends and everyone at the house that she was taking a "gap year" - ludicrously, as if she were some trust fund kid jetting off to Europe to drink himself to death. She bought a used junker from an impound lot and drove straight through, almost five days on the road, back to Meridian, and booked herself a long-term cheap motel about five miles away from her mama's house.

Life there hadn't changed much. The same teachers at the high school, the same old men gathering for coffee at the gas station every morning. Same priest giving the same sermons. Her mama had the same haircut, same clothes. Marie spent about a week just lurking around, relying on time and heavy makeup to fly under the radar, and she doesn't know that she's ever been as devastated to discover that it actually worked. Nobody recognized her. Not even her mama.

She still doesn't know what she wanted to happen. Some dramatic reunion scene, swelling music and all. That her mother, church-going, God-fearing, Bush-voting faithful, would have suddenly changed her mind about her daughter's sinfulness? Yeah fucking right. Marie would have spit in her face, even if she had.

Logan found her after another week. She hadn't seen him in a few months by that point, and he'd let his beard grow longer, and Marie remembers being very focused on that little detail, as if it mattered. It kept occuring to her, even months afterward, like a bad joke. Logan's beard was long, when he picked her up. It made him look older, and a little weird, like a hillbilly. She nagged him until he finally shaved it, probably just to shut her up, in the bathroom of a truck stop in Tennessee.

He was probably taking her to New York, to Xavier's, which he'd been not-so-subtly pushing as an option for the last few years. But Marie had a panic attack in Middlesboro, and after a three-day break during which Marie mostly just cried and ate fast food and cried some more (while Logan hovered, awkward and stricken and helpless on how to comfort her), he agreed to take her back to Canada instead.

She apologized about a thousand times, for making him drive all that way, for crying all over his truck, for drunk-dialling him in the first place, and for anything else she could think to apologize for, but after a few days of driving he finally told her to cut it out. "You called, you needed help, so I helped," he said, "quit making a thing out of it." Which was so quintessentially Logan, rude in a charming way, that Marie did what he said.

They stopped for another week or so in Chicago, since Marie had never been there before, and Logan still had some cash to spare. They went to museums and ate in nice restaurants, and every day she cried a little less, until she finally felt like a human again. Back in the truck, driving north, he asked her what her plan was, she had to think about it for a very long time before she could come up with an answer.

"I want to make my own money," she said. "Enough that I don't ever have to ask for help from anyone."

Logan nodded. "Computers, then," he said. "Go to school for computers."

And so Marie did. She got a degree and learned to write software and now she makes six figures a year and lives on the top of a mountain. And still, Logan comes to visit whenever he can, rolling up her driveway with a truck full of soup cans and used paperbacks, his beard too long and his boots crusted with mud from thousands of miles away. And they don't talk about more, but it lingers between them all the same, moving into their conversations like a slow-moving glacier - silent, unobtrusive, and inevitable.

She doesn't worry about what he does when he's away, because she knows he'll probably survive it. And she doesn't get jealous of other women, because it's really none of her business, and he's never made her any promises anyway. But she counts on him, and expects him, and eventually, when they're ready, they'll say it out loud. Marie doesn't have much in life that she can depend on, so she tries not to take him for granted. Running into him at exactly the right moment, finding a man who would work just as hard for her as she did for him - it was a gift. The only one God ever gave her.

* * *

That night, Marie wakes up to the sound of his voice, barking at someone on the phone in the living room. They'd gone to bed angry, which she hadn't been wild about but he clearly hadn't been in the mood to talk, so Marie had resigned herself to apologizing in the morning.

But he's talking now, angrily, and way too loud to expect privacy. Marie rolls out of bed and stands by the door to eavesdrop, not even attempting to be quiet. She knows he can hear her no matter what, anyway. He can hear her heartbeat from miles away, for God's sake. Trying to sneak around Logan is like putting a paper bag on your face and calling it a mask.

" - go over it again, I already told you everything I remember. Unless you think she fucked with my head, which means we got a whole other set of problems you didn't bother to tell me about."

Marie nudges the door open, frowning. That doesn't sound like a conversation they're going to pretend she didn't overhear.

"Yeah. Yeah I know that." Logan's standing by the window, watching the snowfall. He turns, a moment after the door opens, and looks her straight in the eye as he says, "I'm safer where I am, and you know it."

Inexplicably, Marie blushes at that.

"I told you I would and I meant it," he says after a sharp second. Irritable, like it's something he's said before, multiple times. "Okay. Okay, yeah. ...I will. Thanks, Xavier." He hangs up, still looking at her. In the silence afterward, he raises one eyebrow, like a challenge. "Couldn't sleep?"

"Somebody was gossiping too loud in my living room," Marie says. She moves fully into the room, shivering a little in her pajamas. There's a blanket discarded on the back of the couch, and she wraps it around her shoulders, the draft from the fireplace chilling the air between them. "What was that? Anything I should worry about?"

Logan fiddles with the cell phone, then discards it, tossing it carelessly into his duffel bag, open on the floor by the window. "We had some trouble right before I left New York," he says casually. "One of ours...went off the rails a little."

"Went off the rails how?" Marie asks sharply. Logan shrugs. "Oh, come on."

"It's not important," Logan says, with another shrug. His face, when he moves forward into the lamplight, is pulled tight with tension. "They're taking care of her. It'll be fine."

Something twinges, deep in Marie's chest. "Is that part of why you're laying low?" she asks, leaning her hip against the back of the couch. Logan comes to a stop on the other side, his arms crossed defensively across his chest. "Did she do something to you?"

"Nothing that couldn't be fixed," he says. His face softens. "It's snowing out. Didja notice?"

Marie chews on her lip, nodding silently.

"You wanna go look?"

"Now?" Marie asks. She gives him the hairy eye. "You're just trying to distract me."

Logan shrugs again, and reaches out to snag the edge of her blanket, pulling it off her shoulders. "Go get some real pants on, and some shoes. I wanna show you something."

Marie huffs, trying to hold onto the blanket, but he rips it away from her easily, of course. "You're such a stubborn grump."

"Boots," Logan clarifies, folding the blanket carefully. "And long sleeves. Gloves, too."

"Ordered around in my own damn house," Marie mutters, but she's already turning back to her room. As if she truly had any hope at all of ignoring him.

* * *

Logan drags her out into the woods, blithely ignoring her questions, until Marie finally gives up and focuses on not slipping, the lights of their flashlights illuminating their way. The snow is light still, this early into November, but it's a sign of what's to come: long, long months of ice and wet, heavy snowfalls. The mountains don't fuck around, in the winter. It's like Mother Nature herself is shaking her tits, brushing off anyone who doesn't know what they're doing with her.

There's one trail that edges along the eastern side of her property, but it's so rarely used anymore that it's not very well taken care of. Marie's never walked the whole thing, certainly - it gets pretty dangerous at points. Further down the mountain, there's another more popular trail that people drive up to hike, mostly because it takes you past a pretty impressive waterfall, so nobody really gives a shit about the other one. Logan heads straight for it now, and leads her directly to a spot Marie's only been once or twice - the edge of a fairly sharp drop off that leads down into a deep ravine. She can't see them now, in the dark and the snow, but she knows there's a few warning signs nailed to the trees, put in place by some cautious landowner before Marie's time.

Logan walks right up to the edge, and stops, crouching down to his knees. Marie joins him at the edge - albeit a bit more cautiously - bracing herself on the sharp corner of a boulder. Logan reaches out and grabs her knee - more for his comfort than her own, she suspects.

"Oh look," Marie says dryly. "We're on a mountain."

Logan huffs. "Just wait," he says, indicating the bottom of the ravine. Marie can't see shit down there - unsurprising, in the middle of the goddamn night. "Listen," Logan insists, squeezing her knee. Marie frowns, straining to hear what he does, but there's nothing but the sound of the wind, blowing the tops of the trees above their heads.

"What am I supposed to be - "

"Shh," Logan says sharply, squeezing her knee again. Marie snaps her mouth shut. "You have to work for it, Marie. Just try."

Marie closes her eyes, and listens. Slowly, concentrating, she starts to peel the noises up from the background. The wind is loud, but there, underneath it, she can hear the water from the stream. Rustling from below - too low to be the leaves. And underneath that, a soft, mewing noise, so faint she can barely make it out. Rising up from the darkness of the ravine, an elk is crying.

"Injured," Logan says softly, after a long, long minute. "Heard her this afternoon, when I was out walking."

Marie strains her ears again, trying to hear the cry one more time, but it's gone now. Floating away, beneath the sounds of the snowstorm. "We can't do anything," she concludes sadly. "That drop is way too sharp, even under ideal conditions."

"She's almost gone anyway," Logan says, just as soft. He tilts his head, his face looking shadowed and eerie in the pointed beams from their flashlights. "I was on my way out here, when Charles called. Thought I'd just…" he trails off, shrugging again and Marie's heart melts into a puddle, a warm pool of tenderness at her feet.

"Okay," she says softly, and moves carefully to sit instead of crouch. Shivering a little, she tugs Logan down, too. "We'll just stay with her for a little bit."

Logan nods silently, and slides one heavy, solid arm around her back, bracing it on the ground beside her. Marie leans into his side, and lets her eyes fall closed again.

"You know," Logan says eventually, after the moment stretches. The sounds of the mountain feel oppressively loud, pressing their words down into strange shapes. Nature is so loud, Marie has always been awed to discover. Regardless of the terrain, the world is a chaotic place, with or without a human there to make it so. "I knew this boy once - a mutant, should say, who could freeze things with his hands."

"Hm," Marie says.

"Wasn't like real ice, though. It took much longer to melt than normal ice, and it was...too perfect looking. It looked like a...movie prop. Always thought that was weird. Muties who can create elements - fire, ice, water, whatever - it always feels...off, somehow. You know what I mean?"

"I haven't met a lot of other people like us," Marie confesses. "Made a point to avoid it, actually. You know why."

"Yeah," Logan says gruffly. "I was just thinkin' - all that stuff, the leftover shit. People who melt down cars with their eyes, spit acid, whatever - does that shit have their DNA in it? Like you can take a sample of hair from someone and match it to their name. Could you do the same with a chunk of ice that kid whipped up out of thin air?"

"I dunno," Marie says, disturbed by the idea. "I guess it depends on the specific person, and what they can do."

"I guess," Logan says. "Just makes you wonder. Where we really come from, I mean."

Marie shivers. Down below the elk cries again, faint and mournful. Marie feels her heart stretch in response, as if tugged downward by the sound of her pain.

"I really wish we could do something for her," Marie says quietly. Logan leans in a little closer, nuzzling the side of her head for a brief, charged moment. Marie takes his free hand and clasps it over the flashlight, dappling the beam on the muddy snow behind them.

"We are," Logan says. They don't talk again.

* * *

Deep into winter, Logan and Marie keep the bedroom window shut. But in the spring, they'll redo the screen so they can sleep with it open, which is a nice thought. Marie misses the sounds of the stream, and the coyote barks late at night in the low swing of summer.

But it's just as beautiful to look. A pygmy owl has made its nest somewhere close, and sometimes Marie can see him flying low, hunting in the early morning. And Logan swears up and down that he saw a moose when he was hiking up near the trail, though Marie doubts it. They don't usually come this far up - especially not with this much snow on the ground. But anything's possible, she supposes. Anything can survive anything, under the right conditions. Clean air, running water, and solid ground: if you've got those, you've got everything.

Little more complicated for people like them, maybe. But there's always a way down. She's got her eyes open.


End file.
